Shane Kim wants MMOs on Xbox 360

Microsoft Game Studios boss Shane Kim is working hard to make Xbox 360 an alluring platform for MMO developers.

He canned Cryptic Studios' PC and Xbox 360 online game, Marvel Universe, earlier this year, but says first-party failure needn't hold the genre back from blooming on the console.

"I'll admit MGS has not had success in the MMO space, and that happened under my leadership, so I take full responsibility. It's a tough and challenging space that's evolving all the time - a lot of shifting sands," Kim told Edge. "We haven't been able to crack the code.

"I think we've made the right decision not to proceed with those things like the Marvel MMO. And that's tough, both for customers looking forward to it and teams working on it. That said, we haven't been successful, but there's nothing to say those titles can't be successful on 360."

Shane Kim said he sympathises with third-party frustration caused by lack of a default hard drive and an enclosed online environment - but promises MGS is working hard to find a solution.

"I know that our third-party folks want to enable all kinds of content and we work very hard to create a stable and secure environment on Xbox 360 and that's where you see that [third-party] tension," said Kim.

"I'm sure we can solve that problem though in a way that is good for MMO developers and customers because we want that content: and we're getting very close. But we're late with that, and we feel bad about that."

Cryptic Studios is now hard at work on Champions Online, which also happens to be a superhero MMO for PC and Xbox 360 - as well as PS3. The difference is that Cryptic, and not Microsoft, owns the IP.